Dark Blue (South Island PD Book 1) by Ranae Rose

Author:Ranae Rose
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2015-10-11T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

Mike looked out over his yard, at his neighbor’s fenced lot and the palm-lined street beyond. “He stood back and watched while another officer got in an altercation with some crackhead swinging a baseball bat around. The officer ended up with half a dozen broken bones, and Benedict Arnold hung back – didn’t do anything. He got the shit beaten out of him by half the platoon one night shortly after that, and decided law enforcement wasn’t for him after all.”

“Sounds like a fairy tale,” Jackson said. “If anyone deserves a beating, it’s Sanders.”

Mike shrugged. “That was before body cams, not to mention people with phones on every corner, recording everything. It’s hard to ever be off the record nowadays.”

Jackson nodded – it was true.

“But your problem’s a little different,” Mike said. “This Sanders guy has it out for you especially because of the arrest. He’ll play the other officers in your platoon against you if he gets the chance, like he did with your interim lieutenant. Guys like him don’t keep their jobs long unless they’re good at covering their tracks.”

“So what’s your advice?”

“Don’t let that happen. These officers know you, and they don’t know him. Be better than him. Rise above his bullshit and weather the storm until your lieutenant’s leave is over. And above all, watch your back.”

Jackson nodded, wishing there was something he could do other than grasp at common fucking sense.

“You know I’ve got your back, man,” Elijah said. “And no one else in the platoon likes Sanders anyway. It’s not like you’re on your own.”

“What about Sanders’ wife? His kid?” The thought bubbled to the surface of his mind and burst out. “No one has their backs, and I still feel responsible for that call.”

Mike nodded. “There are times when you want to help more than you can, and that’s one of the hardest parts of the job. I’ve been telling Elijah that for years.”

The knot in Jackson’s gut tightened. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but Mike was right.

Still, the situation was wrong. His mind itched to find a solution, some unseen loophole or brilliant conclusion he could grasp and use to knock Sanders down a thousand pegs or so.

“I know it feels counterintuitive,” Mike said. “You took this job because you want to help people. But you’ve got to learn to focus on controlling what you can. You have people in your life you care about? Protect them. Make efforts every day not to become the kind of person you wish you could protect other people from. Be what you can for who you can. It’s all anyone can do.”

Thoughts of Belle hit him like lightning, electrifying some protective sector of his brain. He’d protect her with his dying breath, with a passion no one else evoked in him – not anyone he helped on the job, or elsewhere. And if they ended up having a child, he’d do the same for him or her. But was that really all he could do?

A life protecting Belle would be a life well spent; he wasn’t denying it.

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